So I See... Konting Pananaw... LITO BANAYO

Friday, August 1, 2008

The last SONA of Doña Gloria was interrupted a hundred or so times (according to the broadcast stations) by coaxed applause. The applause was tepid, likely coaxed by two very apparent observations. First, the speaker on the dais stopped after almost every sentence, and looked as if she was waiting for the applause. After a few seconds of embarrassing silence, the polite applause came. Naghihintay ng palakpak!

The second was the usual presence of starters-Senadora Miriam in pink paler than her Boss Woman's, giving her every ounce of strength to raising the decibels of coaxed approval. Plus the Arroyo brothers, one positioned to the front left of Doña Mama, the other at the rear right. And of course, the ubiquitous Senora Girlie Villarosa.

ANC's Pia Hontiveros sounded truly aghast when she observed that the longest and strongest applause came when the Dona said that "because texting has become a way of life", she (misma!) talked to the "telecoms", and got them to lower the price of text messaging to 50 centavos!

Transcendental!

Without need of any coaxing from Senadora Miriam or Senora Girlie, the hall thundered in wild applause. Had Joker Arroyo deigned to dignify his Boss Woman with his "august" attendance, he would have described the cacophony similar to "jumping chimpanzees". The most transcendental event in the history of the seven years and seven months of Gloria had transpired, mirabile dictu! Ah, such great significance to the life of this miserably benighted land, such earth-shaking announcement from the lips of La Doña, misma! How could she be so beneficent that at such a great hour that comes but once in every year, she had thought of her "pobrecitos y pobrecitas," particularmente los jovenes, a quien este...text..."had become a way of life".

Ang babaw talaga ng kaligayahan, and to think that in that Great Hall of the Benighted sat in transfixed attention and coaxed applause the crème de la crème of this nation's body politic!

That message about text messaging cost being cut, by "diktat" from her imperial highness, was the high point of her-one hour address. People will long remember her for her hated VAT, and will remember how obstinately she called its juice, more appropriately, the blood, sweat and tears of los pobrecitos y pobrecitas, as "el salvador de la patria". (Pardon the profane usage of your name, Tito Doy.) Just as they would remember how the Bugkalot chieftain and mayor of Natipunan in Quirino upended all the multi-millions spent for the haute couture, les parfums et les coiffures (not to mention prior treatments with Belo or Calayan or a botox visit to Bangkok) by simply being himself, even if he must have chafed painfully inside his heart at being used as a prop for all that lying. But miserable people will always certainly appreciate the small and tender mercy of a cut on the cost of text.

And then came the morning after. My God, the telcos were still charging a peso per text! What happened to the diktat of the "queen"? How dare these telcos defy Canuta, and would dirty her feet, er, word, as so marvellously pronounced in the "great hall" of the benighted land?

'Yun pala, promo lang!

Due to the competition for the thinning purchasing power of "estos pobrecitos y pobrecitas," they asked the National Telecommunications Commission if they could cut their rates for their short messaging services by half, for a period of ninety days. Of course the NTC agreed.

With faces as red as beet the day after, the embarrassed NTC officials had to say they would try to make the fifty percent discount permanent, but that, they cautioned, would require hearings.

So man-on-the-street interviews the day after the SONA, and such transcendental message from the "queen" suddenly turned into angry chants of "Nambobola na naman pala!"

But to the succor came the new toady at NEDA, the author of VAT, mismo, who likely would out-nerify Romulo in the post, and intones, as if he would do what his Doña failed to immediately deliver because it was once more lying and cheating and stealing (credit): "I think the government wants that to be permanent, the President wants it to be permanent, so that people will have savings and possibly that can augment their income". Wow! Such transcendental economic theory from Senor Recto, esposo de La Vilma.

Meanwhile, Indonesia lowered its VAT from 7.5 to 3 percent. Thailand is following suit, if it has not yet announced the cut at the time of this writing. But the Doña will "stay the course" because "leadership is not about doing the first easy thing that comes to mind; it is about doing the necessary, however hard."

Vintage Teddyboy Locsin wordsmithing, if I may surmise. I wonder if my friend Teddy also taught her to lie about text messages.

Lito Banayo

Lito Banayo’s involvement in Philippine politics began with a chance encounter with the late Benigno Aquino, Jr. in the spring of 1981, at the Washington Hotel in Washington D.C. Ninoy Aquino was then on exile, after having undergone heart bypass surgery. That started a series of week-end visits to Ninoy’s home in Boston.

In the fall of 1982, Lito decided to come home to the Philippines after two-year stay in the United States, and as he bade goodbye to Ninoy, he was asked to help the then fledging political opposition in the country.

Lito Banayo asked Ninoy who he would report to, and was told to see Doy Laurel. Banayo was quizzical, for the Laurels had been Marcos’ political padrinos in the past. Ninoy told him however that Doy Laurel and he grew up together and were almost like brothers. Thus did Lito Banayo enter the world of a political technician, his description for the kind of work he has been doing since.

He helped Doy Laurel and Eva Estrada Kalaw organized the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) which became the major coalition against the Marcos regime. At a time when media was controlled and Marcos’ monolithic political party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) was all over, UNIDO put up a difficult but nonetheless successful struggle.

In the 1984 Batasang Pambansan elections, the UNIDO coalition won 60 of 180 seats, with an overwhelming majority in Metro Manila and key capital cities. Lito Banayo was deputy spokesperson and deputy campaign manager of that national campaign, working under Ernesto Maceda, who later became Senate President, and Alfonso Policarpio, Ninoy’s publicist.

When Ninoy Aquino returned to the Philippines after years of exile, it was Lito Banayo who, along with Erik Espina, coined the welcome slogan “Ninoy, Hindi Ka Nag-iisa,” a welcome greeting that eventually became a political battlecry after the latter was assassinated at the tarmac of the international airport.

When Cory Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, and Doy Laurel, his childhood friend, later challenged Ferdinand Marcos in the historic “snap” elections of February 1986, Lito was one of the major campaign technicians in an effort that drew many volunteers from all walks of life.

He was appointed Postmaster-General after the Edsa uprising that resulted in the downfall of Marcos and the ascent of Aquino. At the postal office, he initiated major systemic reforms, and initiated its transformation from a budget-dependent office under the transport and communications department into an autonomous government corporation now called Philippine Postal Corporation.

He has become political consultant to various names in Philippine politics – Senator Orlando Mercado, Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan, and now Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. He was consultant too of Speaker Ramon Mitra, Jr., Ronaldo Zamora, Manuel A. Roxas III and Hernando B. Perez, all congressmen at the time.

In 1992, he was campaign spokesman of the Mitra-Fernan presidential tandem. In 1995, he handled the campaign of Senator, later Senate President Marcelo B. Fernan. In 1998, he was in the campaign team that helped Joseph Ejercito Estrada become president of the land. His erstwhile principal, Mercado, was named campaign manager. During the term of President Estrada, he was Secretary-General of Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino, the political party of the then President.

He served as General Manager of the Philippine Tourism Authority from June 30, 1998 to November 3, 2000. He was also concurrently appointed as Presidential Adviser for Political Affairs with cabinet rank, by President Joseph Estrada. Although he resigned from the Estrada cabinet earlier, he was with the deposed president until his last hours in Malacanang.

In 2001, he was campaign manager for then retired PNP director-general Ping Lacson’s difficult but highly successful run for the Philippine Senate. He also helped Ping Lacson as a contender for the presidency in 2004, as well as Manila Mayor Lito Atienza in administrative matters at City Hall during his term.

Lito Banayo finished Economics at Letran College, then undertook graduate studies at the Ateneo Business School, as well as the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration.

He is native of San Pablo City, Laguna, and Malolos, Bulacan, but his family has moved to Butuan City in Agusan del Norte since the early sixties, although he himself has lived in Manila throughout most of his life. He is married and is blessed with three children.